Integrating physical devices with IOTA — The IOTA debit card, Part 2

The 7th part in a series of beginner tutorials on integrating physical devices with the IOTA protocol.

Introduction

This is the 7th part in a series of beginner tutorials where we explore integrating physical devices with the IOTA protocol. This tutorial is the second part in a sequence of tutorials where we will try to replicate a traditional fiat based debit card payment solution with an IOTA based solution. In this second tutorial we will build a simple LED circuit representing the physical device that will allow us to pay for its service using our new IOTA debit card.

The Use Case

Now that we have our new IOTA debit card configured and ready to go as described in the previous tutorial, we will shift our attention to how we can use the card to pay for services. In the previous tutorial i used the coffee maker in the reception and the swimming pool locker as examples where we could integrate our new IOTA debit payment solution. But to be honest, a payment solution like this could probably be integrated into any machine or device that accept payments for its services, such as vending machines, slot machines, parking meters or the hotel room refrigerator from the first tutorial. And why stop there? The guest could even use his IOTA debit card to pay for items in the hotel restaurant or the hotel gift shop, preventing the hotel owner from being charged additional fees by Visa or any other third party payment provider. The possibilities are basically endless.

We will use a simplified version of the LED powered circuit from the first tutorial to represent the device being payed in this tutorial. The main objective of this tutorial is to send valued transactions using our IOTA debit card so we will remove any unneeded components, wiring and coding from the first tutorial as this is not needed to get the point across.